


In The Dark

by bubblemoon66



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Attacks, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Resurrection Spoilers, Romance, Swearing, Temporary Blindness, after-action patch-up, kink meme fill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-09 09:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14713586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblemoon66/pseuds/bubblemoon66
Summary: Valkyrie is temporarily blinded while working a case with Skulduggery. Takes place after Ressurection.





	In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written to fill this prompt posted on the Valduggery Kinkmeme dreamwidth community. 
> 
> Most of it was written before Midnight came out, so it's inconsistent with that and any later books. (AKA There's no midnight spoilers here).
> 
> There's a lot of swearing and some violence/gore in this one, so turn back if that bothers you. Otherwise, please enjoy!

There was nothing unusual about Coach Street. It was a typical residential street on the outskirts of Dublin. A sea of redbrick and concrete. Where the terraced houses opened up directly onto the narrow pavement, and parked cars straddled the curb. The roads here were quiet, but not deserted. A few kids were kicking around a football at the end of the street. They looked up as the Bentley pulled up in front of number forty-four.

"This is it?" Valkyrie asked, peering through the tinted glass of the car window.

"This is it," Skulduggery confirmed.

"Looks normal."

"Looks can be deceiving."

She turned her eyes back to him and watched as he loosened his tie and unbuttoned a few shirt buttons. He tapped the sigils carved into his collarbones. A face flowed up over his skull. It wasn't a bad face. Dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes complemented the familiar square jaw and sharp cheekbones.

"You're staring," he said.

"I'm not," she said, pointedly looking away, "I'm just wondering."

"About?"

_What the hell we're doing._

"Why you haven't referred this case to the Sanctuary. A maybe-missing-persons isn't exactly a priority for us with Abyssinia on the loose."

"Her sister says she anti-Sanctuary. Sending one of their detectives to check if she's at home could lead to trouble."

She looked back at him in time to see him finish buttoning up his shirt. "And?"

Skulduggery shrugged, "If she is anti-Sanctuary maybe she's found her way to Abyssinia. It could be a lead."

"Maybe," Valkyrie conceded. "But we have other leads we could be working on."

"But none of them live ten minutes away. Are you ready to go?"

"Hold on."

She reached over the gearbox and straightened Skulduggery's tie. It was becoming a habit. She wasn't sure if he was leaving it dishevelled on purpose or whether having his murderous ex back in town was playing on his mind. She would have fixed it either way.

"There. Now I'm ready,"

He smiled. A flash of familiar teeth behind unfamiliar lips.

They got out of the Bentley, ignoring the  _Resident's Parking Only_  sign, and looked up at number forty-four. The blinds were drawn - which was a little unusual for three in the afternoon, but nothing to write home about. In the corner of the ground-floor window, Valkyrie spotted a small symbol etched into the glass. She pointed it out to Skulduggery.

"Reinforcement sigil. It strengthens the glass, stops anyone breaking in that way," he explained.

"Nifty. Maybe I should get one of China's apprentices to add some to the Oompa Loompa."

He shook his head, "Bad idea. Reinforcement sigils will stop people from breaking in, but they'll also stop you breaking out in an emergency. Stick with a car alarm. It's safer."

There were more sigils on the front door. She recognised these ones: anti-teleporter sigils. They were a common feature of mage-owned homes. Nothing to be concerned about. What did concern her, however, was the ajar front door. In all of Valkyrie's years of being a detective, an ajar front door had never been a good sign. She was willing to bet this time would be no different.

She looked at Skulduggery, and he looked back at her. They'd done this enough times not to need to words. He stepped to left, she to the right. He drew his revolver, she reached for the shock stick strapped to her back. He nodded and she shouldered the door open.

The hallway was empty. The house was quiet.

There was a door to their left and a staircase straight ahead. A long carpet runner covered most of the wooden floor. The walls were white, unadorned.

Valkyrie stepped into the house, Skulduggery following close behind.

There weren't any signs of a fight in here. No blood splatters or bullet holes, no scratches or scorch marks. No dust or cobwebs or mail piling in the doorway either; which meant someone had been here recently.

What there was, was a security camera on the ceiling. One of those small round ones that followed you around the room. Black and white, with a little red dot to show it was recording.

Valkyrie didn't voice any of her observations because she had no doubt Skulduggery had already noticed them and noticed that she'd noticed. Instead, they shared another terse look.

"Victoria? Victoria Ruse?" Skulduggery called out, his voice reverberating throughout the house. "It's Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain of the Arbitrator Corps. Your sister sent us. We'd like to have a word with you."

Nobody answered. The little red light continued to shine.

Valkyrie took another step forward, onto the rug.

The door behind them slammed shut. She startled and turned. A faint blue light glowed around the edges of the front door.

Skulduggery tried the handle. It turned, but the door didn't open. His facade looked uneasy. Brows knit, eyes narrowed, the slight biting of his lower lip. China had done a good job on the details of his expression. She wondered, briefly, if the rest of his full body facade was as detailed, and then pushed the thought aside.

"Barricade sigil," he concluded.

She jerked her head towards the camera on the ceiling. "You think someone up there activated it?"

He shook his head. "Whoever activated it would have to be nearby, either right behind us or..."

"Or?" she prompted.

"Or in this room."

She was too old to for ominous statements like that to send a shiver down her spine, but her spine didn't listen.

"There's no one else in the room," she said. It was a painfully obvious statement, but one she needed to hear aloud to reassure her.

"There's us," he said. "And there's a rug underneath us."

It took her a second. Then she took a step back, off the carpet runner. Crouching down, she lifted a corner up. A sigil carved in the floorboards glowed by her feet - the same faint blue as the door.

"Clever bastard," she said, under her breath. And then louder: "Can we disable it?

Skulduggery crouched down beside her and traced the sigil with his gloved fingertip. After a moment, he shook his head. 

"No. While I'm sure China could, I don't know how to neutralise this particular variant."

"Okay. So, we can't get out the front door. And the bay window is unbreakable. There's probably a backdoor or an upstairs window we can get out through if we need to."

"Assuming they're not also protected."

She shrugged, which felt a little awkward crouched down with one hand still raised above her head. "Hope for the best. Expect the worst."

"Expect the worse..." he echoed. The worry lines deepened. "Let go of the rug."

She did. The rug remained standing, and then slowly lifted off the floor as Skulduggery manipulated the air beneath it.

There were more sigils carved into the floorboards, where the rug had been, not yet activated.

"I don't know what half these sigils mean," Skulduggery said. "But I recognise a few of them. Do you see that squiggly one by the foot of the stairs?"

"The one that kind of looks like a ram without legs? Yeah, I see it."

"That's the sigil for incinerate."

Valkyrie swallowed, "I'm guessing stepping on it would be a bad idea."

"A very bad idea, unless you like the idea of being a pile ash."

"Duly noted. So, did Victoria Ruse go overkill on her home security or do you think we need to add her name to the list of people trying to kill us?"

"I doubt Victoria Ruse even exists. She was probably just a, well, ruse."

"And we fell for it."

"Unfortunately."

Very very gently Skulduggery lowered the rug. She winced as it touched the floor, half expecting it to burst into flame, but it didn't. That was good. She wasn't keen on being locked in a burning building.

Skulduggery stood and edged towards the door on the left, keeping close to the wall. Valkyrie followed close behind, careful not to set foot on the rug.

The camera swivelled, keeping its lens on them. Was someone monitoring their location, getting ready to jump out at them as they rounded a corner or climbed up the stairs? Or were they hoping to record Skulduggery and Valkyrie's grisly deaths?  _Living Skeleton and Battle Accessory Spontaneously Combust_  - that would be a hit on the Global Link. It might even make it onto youtube.

Whatever the reason, Valkyrie didn't appreciate being watched. She reached up and prodded the camera with the tip of the shock stick. There was an angry zap. Sparks flew and then the red light died. Satisfied, she put the stick away, strapping it securely to her back. It would be easier to keep her balance with her hands-free.

Skulduggery gave her an approving look. His gloved hand hovered over the door handle.

"Ready?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Ready,"

He twisted the handle and threw open the door, gun at the ready.

The room was empty.

Sunlight spilled through gaps in the blinds of the bay window; illuminating the sigils carved into the floor and walls. They covered every square inch of space. So densely packed, there was no chance of entering the room without stepping on one. She could even see a sigil carved onto the light switch by the door.

"It's a good thing we didn't come at night," she said. It was all too easy to imagine stepping into the room in the dark and dying some horrible agonising way.

He grunted a response and put away his gun.

Valkyrie took another look around the room. It was devoid of all furniture. There had been a fireplace once, but it had been sealed off at some point in time. On the wall opposite the window, was an open archway leading to the kitchen. There was a camera on the ceiling, identical to the one Valkyrie had short-circuited. It watched them, red light taunting her.

"We'll have to fly if we want to have a closer look. Are you up for it?"

"As long as you do the flying. My control over magic is still shaky. And I don't trust myself not to fall flat on my ass."

"Your control over magic is going to remain shaky if you never use it."

She knew he was right, but her magic was still a touchy subject. "I can practice when we're not playing the world's deadliest game of the-floor-is-lava. So, beam me up, Scotty."

He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close. His hip pressed against hers. She had the urge to rest her head on his shoulder but resisted. They rose an inch off the ground and drifted into the front room. As they passed underneath the camera, Valkyrie reached up and tore it from the ceiling. Exposed wires sparked. She put the electronic's remains in her jacket pocket, not wanting to risk dropping them on the sea of sigils below.

They hovered into the backroom, a kitchen that looked like it had come straight from a 1980s showroom. Or it would have if someone hadn't taken a knife and carved magical symbols in it from top to bottom. They took their time, looking around. A lot of the symbols repeated - maybe the carver didn't enough symbols to fill a whole house.  Skulduggery pointed out the ones he recognised.  _Electrocute. Cut. Blemish._  That last one, apparently, resulted in a lot of painful warts across the activator's body. The majority of sigils remained a mystery, but she thought she got the gist. 

"Whoever did this-" Skulduggery began, gesturing towards the room. "Must have built an escape route to get out. They would have started in one corner, and worked their way around the house without backtracking on themselves."

"Would we know an know an escape route if we saw one?" she asked. "That sigil on the backdoor could say 'exit here' for all I know. And your knowledge of symbol magic isn't much better than mine."

"The person who built this house isn't likely to know that. They'll have built an escape route under the assumption that we would be clever enough to recognise one. Which means that it will be well hidden, the one sigil we aren't supposed to stumble across. All we have to do is find it."

"Unless they left via the front door," she pointed out.

Skulduggery shook his head. "And risk cornering themselves if they set off the barricade sigil? No, if you're going to go to the trouble of designing a trap like this, you're going to make sure there's a way to get out."

Valkyrie snorted, "I know you have an annoying habit of being right about these kinds of things. But you're making it sound like a Bond villain designed this place."

A thoughtful looked crossed Skulduggery's facade. "You know, now that I think about it, I would make a good Bond. I've got the Bentley, the constantly changing face, the-."

"Do not say Bond girl."

"I wasn't going to."

"But you were thinking it."

"I was going to say charm and intelligence."

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Of course you were."

They drifted towards the stairs, and then up. At first glance, the stairs appeared to have escaped the sigil carver's blade. Then, two-thirds of the way up she spotted a complex series of symbols carved into the baseboard. They lit up, a pale yellow, as Skulduggery and Valkyrie approached.

"These ones aren't pressure activated," Valkyrie said. That worried her. So far the house had been a one trick show, but this was proof that whoever had designed this house was craftier than she had initially thought.

Skulduggery studied the symbols carefully, unease tugging at his facade again. He took a pen from his pocket and dropped it. It fell straight through the step in front of them. There was a metal clang from below.

"Illusion sigils," he said. "Motion activated or magic activated, I can't tell which."

Valkyrie grimaced. "This is going to get ugly, isn't it?"

"Probably,"

They floated the rest of the way upstairs. The floors and walls on the landing were bare. But there was another reinforcement sigil etched into the window's glass. Like the rest of the house, it was devoid of furniture. There were three doors, all closed. Another camera on the ceiling, its lens trailing them. Identical to others, except for-

She grabbed Skulduggery's arm, "Wait!"

He froze.

"Up there," she said, pointing. "There's a sigil carved onto the base of the camera."

"I see it. I don't recognise it. Presumably, we'll find out what it does if we get close enough."

Valkyrie pulled the broken camera from her pocket, "One way to find out."

She tossed it. The camera on the ceiling dissolved into a rain of acid. It hissed, catching the broken camera in midair. The acid burned through it, then began to eat away at the floor. There was a sharp, chemical smell, strong enough to make her eyes smart. A cross between a car battery and rotten eggs.

Her nose crinkled, "How do you even carve a sigil like that without setting it off?" 

"Very carefully, I imagine."

"You have no idea, do you?"

"None whatsoever."

"You know, there was a time I used to think you knew everything."

"Ah, the good old days. I remember them fondly."

Valkyrie couldn't resist giving Skulduggery a light jab with her elbow. "I'm not sure I'd go with  _days_. Hours maybe. Or minutes."

"And what a wonderful few minutes they were," he said, wistfully. "But enough reminiscing. We have work to do."

They glided over the newly formed hole in the floor and inspected the rest of the landing. They took their time, examining every inch. But there wasn't anything to inspect. Just the doors, waiting to be opened.

"Are you ready to see what's behind door number one?" Valkyrie asked, in her best Monty Hall impression.

Skulduggery gave her  _A Look_ that she could have read even without the facade activated, and opened the door.

There was a bathroom behind door number one. Like the kitchen, it was old but pristine. And like the kitchen, there were sigils carved into the fixtures. The same sigil this time, repeated over and over again. Even the toilet had the careful spiral pattern chiselled into the tank.

The symbols pulsed with red light. Once. Skulduggery's grip around her waist tightened. Twice. He was moving them down the hall, away from the open doorway. Then the light pulsed a third time.

For a millisecond more, there was a bathroom behind door number one. And then there wasn't. Instead, there was an explosion of heat and sound and pressure.

Just in time, Valkyrie screwed her eyes shut and threw her arms up to shield her face. Debris hit her. The armoured clothes she was wearing absorbed most of the impact. But her hands were exposed, and shrapnel embedded itself in skin. She would have cried out, but the blast had sucked the air from her lungs. It felt like she had been hit by a giant wave. The force would have knocked her off her feet had she been standing on them, but she wasn't so she remained upright.

The wave ebbed. The temperature dropped. Her ears popped. Valkyrie gasped and spluttered and found air. Then she lowered her arms and opened her eyes. They were at the other end of the hallway now, back by the stairs. Dust filled the landing. Bits of wood, glass, and porcelain littered the floor. Skulduggery let go of her waist and turned her to face him.

His mouth was moving, but it took a while for the words to reach her.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

His voice was fuzzy like he was speaking through a phone with bad reception.

"Alive," Valkyrie managed, before breaking into another coughing fit.

Skulduggery waved a hand and the dust cleared. She could see him clearly now. He didn't look good. His suit was in ruins. The waxy skin of his facade had been torn in a dozen places. The cuts didn't bleed but she could see bone beneath the long one on his cheek. A large jagged piece of porcelain was sticking out of his neck, where his thyroid would have been if he'd had one.

"Are  _you_  okay?" she asked. Her own voice sounded distant too.

"Dead, but I'll get by."

Valkyrie tried to force a smile, but couldn't quite manage it. She couldn't take he eyes of the four inches of ceramic embedded in his neck.  _It could have killed him. It would have killed him._ _If he hadn't already been dead, this would have... Oh, god._

"Valkyrie?"

"You have a..." she let her voice trail off, she didn't want to say it. "Hold on."

Grasping the porcelain between her thumb and forefinger, she drew it out of his neck with a sympathetic wince. It was sickeningly long. She dropped it and it shattered against the floor. Her fingertips traced a path down his collar. She undid the top two buttons and slipped her hands under his shirt. The cuts on her hands left bloodstains on the fabric, but that didn't matter, the shirt was ruined anyway. She tapped the sigils on his collarbones and the lacerated face flowed away, revealing the skull underneath.

Her shoulders sagged.  _He was fine. Could-haves and would-haves didn't matter._ _They'd had dozens of near misses over the years. And d_ _welling wouldn't do anyone any good._

"We need to get out of here," Valkyrie murmured.

She wasn't sure if Skulduggery heard her. She couldn't hear it herself. It didn't need a reply anyway.

The leftover adrenaline was making her hands tremble. Skulduggery took them in his own and gently pried them away from his chest. He removed a dozen splinters from each of her hands. Some small, some large, none of them as bad as his. Neither of them spoke.

There were new nicks on his bones. Their proximity gave her the opportunity to study them, and her pain an excuse. The one on his cheekbone was from the explosion. But the one in his eye socket he must have gotten during her self-inflicted exile. He hadn't told her how. She supposed it was because he didn't want to worry her. Or guilt her. Of course, she'd stewed in worry and guilt regardless.

"Thanks," Valkyrie said when he pulled out the last of her splinters.

He let go of her hands. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out one of her blessed pain-numbing leaves. 

"We'll find some antiseptic and get those cuts cleaned, as soon as we get out of here," he promised.

She nodded. Her mouth busy chewing on the leaves. 

Then she glanced at what had been the bathroom, wondering if that was their ticket out of this house of horrors. The room was barely recognisable now. Only the walls and window were still intact. More  _reinforce_ sigils, no doubt. They weren't getting out that way. Which meant they'd have to try one of the other doors now.

"This one next?" she said, indicating the nearest door with a jerk of her head.

"I'll open it. You stay here, in case there's another explosion," Skulduggery said, lowering both of them to the ground. "It'll be easier for me to manoeuvre out of the way if I'm on my own.

A part of Valkyrie wanted to protest, to insist she could do it instead, but she didn't. She already knew how that argument would play out, blow for blow. When it came down to it, he could survive being stabbed in the neck, and she couldn't.

"Fine," she grunted.

Skulduggery tilted his head. "Really? You usually argue with me about these sorts of things."

"We had that argument in my head already, and I lost."

"I see. That's very... efficient of you."

She shrugged. "That's me, Ms. Efficiency."

"Well..okay." There was an awkward pause before he asked, "Did I make an impassioned speech about how everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and how my strengths made me the best person for this job?"

"You did."

"And I touched upon how modesty is one of my many strengths?" 

"Of course."

"Was there a bit about how much I value you?"

"Naturally."

"And I was the perfect blend of witty and touching, was I?"

"Yep."

"Right. Good. That's good. I suppose we should get on with it then."

She took a few steps back. Near enough to the door that she could rush to his aid. Far enough to the side that she would escape the worst shock-waves if there was another explosion.

"Ready when you are," she said.

He reached for the door handle, then hesitated, unusually uncertain. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to say?"

"I'm good."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Neither of them moved. Valkyrie's muscles were tense. The same tension was in Skulduggery's stance. It was in the space between them.

"Skulduggery?"

"Yes?"

There were several things she could have said. She settled with: "Don't you dare die and leave me here alone."

That seemed to satisfy him. He opened the door.

Nothing happened.

Valkyrie counted to ten in her head. Still nothing.

Skulduggery reached for another pen in his jacket and tossed it into the room. She counted another ten seconds. Nadda.

He took a cautious step forward, into the room. She counted to five this time and then joined him in the doorway.

Another empty room. Sigils on the floor and walls, inactive for now. The symbols were more spaced out than they had been downstairs. They wouldn't have to hover over them, just step carefully.

"I thought I convinced you to stay in the hallway," Skulduggery said.

"You did. And I stayed there for 25 seconds. There wasn't an explosion. So now I'm going to make sure _you_ don't walk under an acid shower."

"I'm guessing if I try to convince you to wait in the hall, you'll tell me you've already played out this conversation in your head and you won."

"Yep."

"Alright," he conceded. "Let's find this escape route."

Skulduggery went first, Valkyrie close behind.

There was another camera on the ceiling. It didn't appear to be booby-trapped, but she left it alone because there was another  _blemish_ sigil directly underneath it. The window overlooking the garden was reinforced like the others. Several incinerate sigils were carved into the floor. She stepped around one and turned to look behind her.

There was a blinding flash of white light. She cried out, tried to shield her eyes, the pain overwhelming. And then everything went dark. Her eyes  _burned_. She rubbed them in desperation, trying to make the pain stop. It didn't work. Her eyelids felt like sandpaper. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Valkyrie?!"

"Skulduggery?! Skulduggery, I can't see!"

She could hear the panic in her voice. How shrill it sounded. Her breath came too quick, too heavy.

"It's alright. It's fine. Don't move. I'm going to lift you off the ground. You're standing too close to a sigil."

Her feet left the floor. Primal instinct told her to kick, to get away. Her leg collided with something solid. Steady grabbed her wrists, pulling them away from her face. She forced herself not to fight back.

"Valkyrie, listen to me," Skulduggery said, voice reassuring. "It's okay. You're okay. But you need to stop rubbing your eyes. You're going to make them worse."

She laughed. It was one of those short hysterical  _I-Can't-Belive-This-Is-Happening_  laughs. She hated that kind of laugh, but it couldn't be helped. "I can't  _see,_ Skulduggery _._ "

Waves of terror threatened to drown her. She struggled to fight it. Struggled for air. 

"I know," he said, "You looked at a blinding sigil. But the effects are temporary. You're going to be fine."

She tried to focus on his voice. The tone was soothing, the calm to her storm.  _Regulate the breathing. That was key. Push_ _down the pain. Push down the panic attack. Deal with those later. If he says you're fine, you're fine._

Skulduggery let go of her wrists. "Do you have any more of your leaves?"

She nodded. Not trusting herself to speak without the hysteria yet. Her hands were shaking again, but she managed to find the leaves in her pocket and shove them into her mouth. She wasn't supposed to take that many but she didn't care.

Skulduggery wiped the tears on her face away with his gloved fingertips. 

It took a few minutes for the leaves to kick in. It took a few minutes more for her heart rate to steady.

"How long?" she asked.

Skulduggery didn't answer. She could feel the weight of the question between them. She knew he knew what she meant. They didn't have to explain themselves to each other. It was reluctance stopping him from answering, not ignorance.

"How long does this blinding sigil last, Skulduggery?" She let anger creep into her voice. It was easier to be angry than afraid.

There was another long pause, then: "Three days. Maybe four."

"Fuck.  _Fuck!_  Four days! I can't do this. I can't wait that long."

Her hands rose to try and rub the gritty feeling out of her eyes.

Skulduggery caught her wrists again. "That  _will_  slow down you're recovery time."

"Fuck," she repeated. Swearing seemed to help with the lingering pain. "How are we going to get out of here now?"

"We keep looking for an escape route. There's still another room to search, and if it's not there we'll do another sweep of the house."

"And what if there isn't an escape route?"

"There will be. And if we can't find one; we'll find a way to make one. I will get us out of here, Valkyrie, I promise you."

The tone was self-assured, leaving no room for debate. She wanted to believe him. She had to believe him - the alternative would be to give in to despair and that was not a road she wanted to travel again.

Valkyrie took a deep breath and put on her brave face. "When we get out of here, I'm going to find Victoria Ruse or whoever the fuck did this, and I'm going to kick them very hard in the teeth."

She hoped the camera watching them had a microphone. She wanted them to hear the anger in her voice. She wanted them to know that she wasn't afraid - but they should be.

"That's the spirit," he said, brightly. "We should get moving."

He let go of her wrists and snaked an arm around her waist. This time she gave in to the urge and let he head rest on his shoulder. It was a comforting feeling. He squeezed her tighter. They moved through the air together, in their half-hug.

As they moved through the house, her brave face faltered. Visions of acid rain and explosions plagued her. A death she wouldn't see coming. The lack of control terrified her, but she wouldn't let it rule her.  _Trust him._  She had to trust Skulduggery would get them out of this. She turned her focus to him: his hand, his hip, his body pressed against hers.

_Forget about dying, he wouldn't let anything happen to you,_ she told herself.

Then another thought occurred: "Why didn't the blinding sigil work on you? I mean, you _can_  still see, right? This isn't the blind leading the blind here?"

"I can still see," Skulduggery confirmed. "Blinding sigils affect the eyes, and since I don't have any to see though..."

"Ah, makes sense."

"I'm going to open the other door. Ready?"

Valkyrie braced herself. She felt Skulduggery shift slightly, and then a jerk back with an "Ow."

There was a faint burning kind of smell.

"What? What happened? Are you okay?"

"The doorknob's rigged from the other side. But I'm fine. My gloves are mostly shockproof."

_Mostly._

His weight shifted before she could comment. There was a thump and a crack of splintering wood, as the door was, presumably, kicked in.

"Ah, more sigils; no surprise there. I'm not how these ones are activated." Skulduggery said. "Do you have anything I can throw? I've run out of pens."

She rummaged around in her jacket pockets and pulled out a crushed granola bar. Skulduggery took it. There was a light thud. Then an even lighter hissing sound. 

"Well," said Skulduggery. "A sigil on the wall lit up, but nothing seems to be happening."

They waited a more few seconds. Valkyrie's blood hammered in her ears. Waiting for  _something,_ but nothing came. There was no wave of heat and sound, no explosion. There wasn't the smell of rotten eggs or battery acid. Just a faint bittersweet sort of- 

"Skulduggery, I can smell almonds." 

"Oh," he said. "In which case, I think I know what that sigil on the wall does. Not to worry."

There was a notable change in air pressure. She could feel Skulduggery manipulating the air currents to create a protective bubble around them. 

Valkyrie frowned. "I feel like whoever built this place, wanted to kill me but wasn't particularly bothered about killing you. I  mean, I'm assuming you can't die by inhaling cyanide." 

"No one's ever tried killing that way before, but I can't see how it would work, what with the lack of lungs. Are you feeling okay? No signs of dizziness or a headache coming on?"

"I'm fine, besides you know, resisting the urge to gouge out my eyes." 

"That will pass. Let's keep moving."

They moved forwards. 

"There's another camera in here. And a fireplace; this one isn't blocked off. There's a bay window like the one downstairs too," Skulduggery chronicled. "Oh, that's clever. They've put sigils on the inside of the blinds, so if you roll them up you'll activate them..."

"Clever, but not clever enough to fool you." 

"No, not that clever" he agreed. "The fireplace keeps catching my eye. Why is this fireplace still open when the one downstairs has been blocked off? It doesn't look like it's been used."

"Nothing in this house looks like it's been used," Valkyrie pointed out. 

"True. But why block off just one? There must be a reason." 

"Maybe the previous owners of the house did it."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Bare with me a moment. I'm going to set you down, so I can have a closer look."

Her boots touched solid ground. The arm around her waist disappeared. 

"Try not to move," he said. "There's a sigil immediately behind you and another one five inches to the left. If you need to dodge, you can take a step to the right, but just one. There's an electrocute sigil about one and a half feet that way. The fireplace is directly in front of you. No sigils on it that I can see." 

"Right, got it. What are you thinking of doing?"

He didn't answer. There was a rustle of fabric, a shuffling noise in front of her. 

"Ah. That's interesting," he said. His voice had a muffled echo to it. 

Valkyrie frowned. "Skulduggery? Are you  _in_  the fireplace?" 

"I am. There's a sigil in here, carved into the chimney. I think if I touch it, I could activate it and find out what it does."

Valkyrie's heart sped up. "Don't activate it."

"Why not?" 

"Because you don't know what will happen if you do."

"That's exactly  _why_ I want to activate it." 

"It might be a trap." 

"It might be our way out. Think about it: we're looking for a sigil we're not supposed to find. This is clearly a sigil were not supposed to find."

"We don't know for sure there is a secret way out. You said it yourself, the person who built this place was clever. They might have anticipated you nosing around."

"And you said they weren't clever enough to fool me. Trust me, Valkyrie. This is our most likely way out."

"Then let me do it," she blurted out. "Let me activate the sigil. If you're so sure that it's safe, I can do it." 

Skulduggery hesitated, a second too long, before speaking. "There's no need to trouble yourself when I'm already in here. Besides you'd probably hit your head on the mantelpiece. It's much safer if I do it."

"Skulduggery. If you die activating that sigil, I've got no chance of getting out of here alive. If I die, then at least you can still find a way out."

"But if it  _is_  a trap, and I'm not saying it is, I have a better chance of surviving it then you do," he said. "So I'm going to activate it. No more arguing."

Valkyrie's eyes were watering again. And that made her angry. She wanted to argue. She wanted to yell and scream.  _This isn't fair_. He couldn't ask her to stand there while he gambled with his life. At least, not for a second time in one day. 

_If he dies..._  
  
It was one of those things they never talked about. It was funny in a kind of unfunny way, how they'd managed to skirt around the subject for twelve danger-filled years. Okay, they'd talked about it a bit, when the stakes were high and they had a bad hand. But they'd never  _really_  talked about it. Not about the important bits, not about what mattered. There was still so much to say, and there would never be enough time to say it all in. 

At least if he died here today, she would only have to live with it for a very short while. 

She still wanted to argue. But she already knew how the rest of this conversation would play out. When it came down to it, Skulduggery could survive things she couldn't. And he was going to keep playing that card until she folded. 

_Damn him._

There was so much to say, and never enough time to say it all. So she settled with: "Don't you dare die. Don't you dare leave me alone."

There was the sound of stone scraping against stone. A rush of cool air from below. A clang. A cry of pain. The air around her changed, the pressure dropping. She could feel an empty space where Skulduggery had stood. 

"Skulduggery?"   
  
He was gone. She was alone. Sightless, trapped and alone. Fear seized her once more. Wrapping its icy fingers around her heart. Snagging her breath. She reached out blindly. Her fingers caught the mantelpiece. She felt the hole where the hearthstone should be.   
  
"Skulduggery?!"

"Good news," came a distant echoing voice. "It is an escape route. I'm in the garden. Bad news: it's a rough ride. Can you find your own way down?"   
  
_Thank God. Thank Christ._  Relief washed over her. Her heart thawed. She exhaled. Then she remembered the cyanide-laced air and tried not breathe in. 

She lowered herself over the newly created hole, letting her legs dangle over the void. The fireplace rumbled. It had to be self-sealing.  _Quickly then_. 

She fell, hitting a slab of metal with a clang, and then slid. Something, a bolt most likely, caught her jacket. She hissed as the metal bit into the exposed flesh of her back. A second later, her body slammed against a wall, as she rounded a corner. And then it was over. 

Familiar arms caught her. She could have cried. She could have kissed him. She did neither; because that would mean admitting how scared she'd been, how terrifying the idea of losing him was. And they didn't talk about that. Not since the accelerator fiasco half a decade ago. 

The last of the afternoon sun warmed her face. A light breeze played with her hair. She gulped in the fresh air. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of traffic moving and children laughing. 

"You weren't joking about the rough ride," she said. It wasn't what she wanted to say, but what she wanted to say was what they skirted around, and this was good enough. 

"Unfortunately not," he said, setting her down on the ground. "Besides the eyes, how are you feeling? You're not sleepy, are you? Or short of breath?"

"I'm sore. I feel like shit. But I don't think I'm dying of cyanide poisoning if that's what you're worried about."

"Good," There was a sigh of relief hidden in that single syllable. Then his tone shifted back to work-mode, "There's a door over there that looks like it leads to a back lane. Should we see if it's unlocked?"

"Lead the way."

Arm back around her waist, he guided her. They didn't fly this time, instead, they walked side-by-side. Their pace perfectly matched. 

As it turned out, the door was locked, but it gave in with one good kick from Skulduggery. He steered her down the street and around corners. The sound of traffic and kids playing grew louder. 

"Is your facade back up?" Valkyrie asked. "I don't want to terrify the locals."

"Already ahead of you, my dear."

"Oh, good." She must have missed that, which wasn't surprising considering the circumstances. "The cuts on your face, the ones you got earlier... they're gone, right? The damage wasn't permanent?"

"They're gone," he confirmed. "Now let's stop worrying about me, and get you home. The Bentley is right in front of us." 

There was a soft mechanical chirp - the sound of a car being unlocked. Skulduggery opened the door for her, brushing against her as he did so. Reaching out blindly, she found the edges of the car and awkwardly lowered herself into the seat. The leather was comfortable and familiar. She sunk into it. 

"Jesus Christ, that was bad." 

"We've had better days," Skulduggery, agreed. "Although there is a plus side to taking this case."

"What is it?"

"Cemetery Road is only a ten-minute drive from here."

With a soft groan and what she hoped was a surly look in Skulduggery's direction, Valkyrie reached over and slammed the car door shut. 

 


End file.
